On January 11, more than four hundred South Side residents came together to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and call upon elected officials to
address issues of public transit, affordable housing, and community violence. The event took place at St. Mark United Methodist Church and drew congregants from
more than a dozen churches and nonprofit organizations across the South Side and South Suburbs as well as a bus full of students from the University of Chicago.

SOUL’s Gold Line transit proposal – affectionately known as the “Soul Train” – got a major boost from the event. South Side residents suffer from the longest commute times in the Chicago area. Metra’s Electric District line goes through underserved areas of the Southeast side, but thousands of South Side residents do not use the line because trains are just once an hour during off‐peak hours and people cannot use their CTA farecards or transfer between Metra and the CTA in most circumstances. SOUL is proposing that Metra run trains every ten minutes from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, accept CTA farecards, allow transferability between CTA and Metra, and build a new station in Bronzeville.

It was always inevitable that the petroleum based, oil dependent economy would sputter, falter, and eventually fail. We stand at the precipice of that
event. We have seen the consequences of rising oil prices and dependency on foreign oil. Families have been pushed to the brink, jobs have been lost,
mothers find themselves choosing between a tank of gas or groceries.

But with every great crisis, there is also great opportunity!

We have long considered the concept of “green” solutions and a “Green” economy as being divorced from the ills of reality. After all, why should I care
about trees when my child’s life is at stake every time he walks to school? Why should I want to install a solar panel at my house when I can barely afford my
house in the first place? But the question we must now ask “is there a way to heal our planet and heal our communities as well?”